


You Know My Name

by HopeStoryteller



Series: Gleefully Voicing This Eulogy [10]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/F, Gay, Major Character Injury, Near Death Experiences, No Lesbians Die, Not Really Character Death, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Useless Lesbians, as for these two:, i am once again asking for mere crumbs, i saw a fanmade fight on youtube and the silksong machine kicked into high gear again, team cherry ily but please, they're lesbians in my heart if not in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29335131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Far away from home and farther away from help, Hornet runs. And yet, help may come from the unlikeliest of places—if she is in a position to accept it.
Relationships: Hornet/Lace (Hollow Knight)
Series: Gleefully Voicing This Eulogy [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2028826
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	You Know My Name

Hornet runs. 

She can’t stop to bind her wounds. She can’t slow down to grapple faster. And even if she had the time to do either of those things, she lacks the silk reserves to do them, and gathering more would require, wait for it, slowing down. Which she can’t risk, because her pursuers are _right behind her._

And so Hornet runs. Faster, now, pushing her lithe body to its very limits. She can’t keep this up forever, but neither can they. Any moment now, the sound of heavy footsteps and ringing bells behind her will recede, and she’ll be able to breathe again, and lose them.

The moment isn’t coming. Hornet still runs, for she _will_ die if she doesn’t. Her heart pounds. Her breath comes in quicker and quicker spurts, and yet she still pushes herself harder—for she _must._ Failure is not, and never has been, an option.

And unlike her missing sibling, who could piece themself back together over and over again if need be, she only has one chance, one life. One life that is _dangerously_ close to being yanked out from her by a silken thread, if she does not move _faster._

Hornet moves faster, runs even faster, and yet it still is not enough. If anything, the bells are _closer._

She needs to lose them. With the careful eye of a huntress, she surveys her surroundings for something, anything. There is an open landing up ahead, with nothing save lava below. 

…that gives her an idea. She beelines for the landing, passing her needle to another arm, and twirls in place on the edge, needle held at the ready. Lace is there. Were it _just_ Lace there, that same old song and dance, she would not be worried. But it is _not_ just Lace there. Others from that ridiculous _cult,_ and one of her significantly less pretty and slightly less skilled comrades in arms.

“You believe you are to catch me,” Hornet calls.

“Why, of course!” Lace’s laugh is light and airy, and if it were anyone _but_ Lace, Hornet would not be worried. If it were _only_ Lace, Hornet would not be worried. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to surrender?”

Hornet hisses, “Never. Have fun explaining to your masters what happened to the _little spider.”_

She takes one more step backward—and lets herself fall. Once she can’t see Lace anymore, she acts quickly, and with what remaining silk she has. She twirls in midair, wrapping a strand of thin, strong silk around her midsection. Then, in an deft motion, she threads her needle and hurls it. It lodges itself firmly in the bottom of the ledge, held there with equal parts strong silk and weaver magic, and with a thought, reels herself in. 

As she does, she reaches into her pockets and throws a single spike into the lava below her. Not _nearly_ enough to cause the splash her falling in would, but enough that they don’t suspect she escaped at all. She could really, _really_ use a few days of the cult believing her to be dead already. Of Lace believing her to be dead already.

She is so focused on this, and on moving fast, that she reels herself into the underside of the ledge just a little too rapidly—and, consequently, she sees the uneven protrusion of rock just an instant before smacking headfirst into it. Hornet has just enough time to mentally berate herself for her mistake, and then—nothing. The collision sends her careening back over the lava, but the silken thread holds even as the spider herself hangs limply by her midsection, spinning slightly in midair, unaware of anything at all even as haemolymph trickles down from beneath her mask.

* * *

Above, Lace stares down at the lava. She can’t have just done that. Could she have? She can’t have just… given up. She knows, now, that Hornet does _not_ give up, that she is more willing to fight until she collapses than do… this. Whatever this is.

“Sharpe,” Lace says harshly, “take the patrol and leave.”

Sharpe sniffs, equally disdainful. “The spider has survived worse than this before.”

“Falling into _lava?_ Sharpe. Go. I will cover more ground alone, and if she _is_ dead, it is _your_ plan that resulted in it, and _your_ responsibility to bring _them_ the bad news. Unless you’d like me to tell them all about your _idiocy?”_

“…fair enough,” Sharpe concedes. “You rabble, with me. Don’t be too long, or I will tell them you were responsible.”

Lace rolls her eyes and fires back, “Yes, because it was _clearly_ my idea to chase down a bug known to be exceptionally skilled in rapid movement, with you, when I am well known to always work _alone._ Do not be stupid and think you can lie to _them._ Hurry along.”

It is only after Sharpe is gone, grumbling, and with the others with him that Lace kneels next to the edge. She runs her claws along it, frowning.

“Little spider?” She asks to the open air. “If you are there, I will not hurt you.”

There is no answer. Smart of her—Lace’s statement wasn’t entirely truthful. It would be smart of Lace to wait nearby, to stage an ambush of her own instead of walking blindly into Hornet’s. It would be smart, and yet she leans slightly over the edge and notes that the ledge is just that: a ledge, and not a particularly thick one at that. Plenty of space for a particularly crafty little spider to hide beneath, particularly one as acrobatic as her Hornet. She leans over it further, cautiously, experimentally, and is heartened to catch a glimpse of a red dress.

“I _know_ you are there, little spider,” Lace says pointedly. “I don’t suppose you could save us both the trouble and climb up?”

There is still no answer, not even a cutting quip at her expense. Lace quells the worry that racks her body, instead tucking her pin away and, carefully holding on so as not to fall into the lava herself, climbs over the edge.

It is immediately obvious that Hornet is there. It is also immediately obvious why she has not responded. Hornet is—spinning listlessly, above the lava. Unconscious at best. She’d _better_ be unconscious, if she managed to kill herself in such a stupid way as this Lace will drag her all the way back just to kill her again.

Most importantly, however—the smallest sound of fraying silk draws her attention. Hornet is only held up by a single thread, a thread that should have been enough to hold her up—but evidently, it isn’t. It’s fraying. At any moment now, it will break.

Carefully, Lace digs her pin into the underside of the platform, and swings on it, bringing herself closer to Hornet. She can almost— _almost—_ reach her. Just a little further…

The silk snaps.

Lace lunges. 

She catches Hornet (far lighter than she expected, _too_ light, how injured was she when Sharpe stumbled upon her by sheer accident) and, desperately, grabs for something, _anything_ to keep them both from falling into the lava. Her claws find something metal and sharp, something that hurts to hold on to—but falling into the lava would hurt _far_ more and she can handle a little pain.

Panting heavily now, she re-evaluates her situation. She’s got Hornet, who is thankfully still breathing. And she has, apparently, grabbed onto Hornet’s own needle. By the blade. Which explains why her claws are hurting, and why the haemolymph dripping down into the lava is not just Hornet’s anymore. But she can’t let go. Letting go would doom them both.

But she cannot hold this forever, and so she holds Hornet tightly with one arm and _focuses_ with another. Lace has never been magically inclined, with _one_ exception. That exception is called to her now, in the form of several tiny white flies, swirling around them and waiting for her orders.

“Get us…” Lace takes a deep breath. The arm holding to Hornet’s needle shakes, but she cannot let go. Not until they are both safe. “Get us above this ledge, not below it.”

Her lightspinners circle them once again, faster and faster, until with a flash of white light Lace is atop the ledge once more, standing nearly where Hornet had before. Two smaller flashes teleport her pin and Hornet’s needle up as well, and then the lightspinners are gone again.

They never wait for her to thank them. Still, Lace whispers a thanks to the wind they are borne away on, before gently laying Hornet down behind a pillar and opening her pack for bandages. 

Logically speaking, she _should_ have left Hornet there, hanging by a thread. The citadel capturing her—capturing _any_ other weaver, but especially her—will be disastrous. The safest thing to do would be to kill her, now, while she’s vulnerable. The citadel cannot capture a living weaver if said weaver is not alive, and it is to this end that Lace retrieves her pin and points it at Hornet’s throat.

But… her decisions with Hornet have not been logical for some time, have they? She _should_ have finished her off when she survived her fall into the Moss Grotto. She _should_ have killed her quickly when she was limping away from the Bell Beast’s rampage, or from any number of other brief occasions when she was vulnerable and hadn’t yet been able to retreat and recover. She should not have given her a fair fight, and yet despite everything, from the beginning—Lace _liked_ her. Lace _still_ likes her, perhaps far more than Hornet likes Lace.

And she has survived everything else Pharloom’s thrown at her. Who is Lace to decide that she shouldn’t survive this?

And so, Lace puts her pin away and retrieves her own stockpile of bandages.

* * *

When Hornet wakes, she is alone. Her wounds are bandaged— _all_ of them, not merely where she’d hit her head—and her needle lays by her side. She stands, blinking, as she considers this. She is behind a pillar, obscuring her from view of anyone who did not know where to look. And she _knows_ she didn’t pull herself up.

So who _did?_

Her question is answered when she lays eyes upon a single, tiny, white fly, sitting upon the floor across the hall, behind her pillar’s twin. She stares at it. The fly—although she is beginning to have her doubts if it is a bug at all—stares back.

“Thank you, Lace,” she tells it, before hefting her needle and stepping out into the perils of Pharloom once more. The butterfly flies past her, and she watches it go up and up and _up._ To the citadel itself, no doubt, or near it. They will not speak of this when they next meet, and that has no business hurting as much as it does.

(“You’re welcome, Hornet,” whispers Lace far above her, as she changes the bandages on her own claws and her lightspinners dance around her head.)


End file.
